Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Riff Trax Live

Do you enjoy making fun of movies? Are you an original or new fan to MST3K or its current offshoots Cinematic Titanic and Riff Trax?

Then mark your calendars for this October because something amazing is coming to a theater near you!

I can remember first watching MST3K with Joel and the Bots in the early to mid 1990's. A high school friend had some VHS tapes and an obsession was born! Soon I was spouting off lines, singing songs, and getting the newsletter, ordering merchandise and wearing a Dr. Forrester t-shirt. Eventually Joel went on to other things and Mike was shot up into the S.O.L. We won't get into that here....

I attended the first Riff Trax Live last year which was simulcast to theatres across the country from a single live event. Mike, Kevin and Bill were joined by talented guests during the live event and it was fun seeing the audience at certain points. They did some shorts and then played Plan 9 while they riffed on it live. It was hilarious and it was awesome being in a full theatre of people having a wonderful time.

Plan 9 was presented in color, which I have some positive and negative criticisms of. I will always prefer to see a movie shot in B&W presented in its original form, but I realize a lot of contemporary audiences do not like B&W. I grew up watching mostly classic films from the 1930's and 1940's and with a few exceptions those films were shot in B&W. The colorization of Plan 9 was done very well, but if I were just going to see it and not Riff Trax I would want it in the original form.Last month I went to see Riff Trax Live do Reefer Madness. It was also colorized and the effect was hilarious. The smoke rings were changed to different colors which turned out nicely.

Just like the last live event you got free digital goodies, i.e. the right to download shorts from the site that you would otherwise have to pay for.

It was another great experience with the reactions of the audience in my theatre heightening the commentary going on between the Riff Trax crew.

During the 30 minutes leading up to the film it showed a fake "Did You Know" slide program that parodied those stupid slides that so many theatres play before the feature.

Here's an example of one: Thanks to a Facebook campaign Betty White will assume the Megan Fox role in Transformers 3.

I adore Vincent Price and I love this movie! It will almost be painful to see it subjected to Riff Trax, but the movie does have a camp quality to it that will translate well. I can just almost hear some of the jokes that will come out of this one....